If the quick of bone
is marrow,
then why are my ribs so slow
to now take up your part?
Don’t they remember you –
my Eve –
how you filled their hollowness
with the haste to twin,
that keening heave
of heavenward breath?
For dVerse Quadrille
Tag: Poetry
Salad Days
Life ain’t no picnic
’cause when I open the basket
I get a head cheese sandwich
which is body parts, right?
In aspic, like the gelatin
of love, holding it all together.
Ain’t a bowl of cherries either,
aren’t the pits toxic? Dog got sick
last time she got into a bunch.
More like life is a bowl of crabapples
and those make her sick too.
If life is a journey, I’m amazed.
If it’s a game, my bones feel like
at-bats, and my ribs are scored.
If life is change,
someone stole my lunch money!
If life is a gift,
are we all supposed to
live in the present?
Tossing a salad for Miz Quickly’s Labor Day Picnic
As the Adage Turns
Measure twice, cut once.
Treasure twine, split for nonce.
We’re but measured mice, cut slack.
Life’s a maze, amazed, we’re lost, we lack.
What blaze lights your path, the muse of riches?
For love nor money, wager stitches.
Worn red or black, a gamble’s set.
The eyes throw down a heavy bet.
Witless guise, weight of pride, all mulish.
Penny-wise, pound foolish.
For dVerse Twisted Adage
Quadrille 61
The time bird swings and sings
a tincture of rhyme
into the puzzle of dreams –
wake up honeybun!
Twitch back the clock’s tick tock
box of zz’s sleep caterwauls
claws the walls
trick locks in the tip of the trip of the
slight fantastic
For dVerse Quadrille
Quadrille 60
I sing you “Alouette”
je te plumerai les yeux, bec, tête
plucked eyes, beak, head
happily stripped to gooseflesh
killing you with my beautiful French
our feathers like songs
we don’t understand
itching under our skin once we’re
hungry enough for love
For dVerse Quadrille
Blind Sight
“It is life’s work to recognize the mystery of the obvious”
– Jim Harrison
Your laugh a blurry yawn –
I’m so nearsighted you are always
your beautiful best each morning
as you push me out of bed
Yet my eyes have the gift of
near sight –
Husbandry the myopia
of close study and closer calls
That look, too close
for comfort
Such when I roll back towards you
within a whisper of your lips
A semiquaver of your eyes’
plainsong light
I see how love and the world
collapse
Sanguine
“A violent windstorm the night before the solstice.”
– Jim Harrison
Not all the sun of yesterday’s solstice
could cauterize my dreaming
The longest day not long enough,
its rays not strong and twined enough
To bind and wind and stanch
night’s happy wound
Daze 23
“His mind’s all black thickets and blood.”
– Jim Harrison
Blood is thicker than madness,
but it is love that clots our hair
Haiku – Run Amok
“The world that used to nurse us
now keeps shouting insane instructions.
That’s why I ran to the woods.”
– Jim Harrison
Man, trees are crazy
Roots play taps, madness of light –
Know woe synthesis
Over Easy
“I see today that everyone on earth
wants the answer to the same question
but none has the language to ask it.”
– Jim Harrison
What’s for breakfast?
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